Tesfaye Urgessa

During Miami Art Week, Saatchi Yates will open a temporary gallery space in the Miami Design District at 35 NE 40 St., where Tesfaye Urgessa’s latest paintings will be displayed in a solo exhibition. Through 15 large-scale works (some of Urgessa’s largest to date), the Ethiopian artist continues to shine his focus on the politics of identity through representations of race, utilizing his signature smooth brushstrokes and an approach derived from the chiaroscuro technique. Urgessa’s compositions are free of harsh, definitive lines, but full of bodies, their muted tones and soft forms making it impossible to discern one body from the next. In the works on view, the artist expresses ideas about mass surveillance, inviting his audience to consider how people of color are more frequently subjected to these methods of regulation.